As Cade staggered and collapsed onto the coral-strewn ground, Maya caught the movement out of the corner of her eye. His knees gave out, and his body crumpled like a lifeless corpse, hitting the floor with a dull, sickening thud.
But she wasn't the only one who noticed.
The Shadecoils circling the two soulless Dreamers reacted instantly. Two of the monstrous brutes turned their attention to Cade's fallen form. Their grotesque limbs propelled them forward with terrifying speed.
Their intent was clear— tear him apart, rip his body to shreds before he could so much as twitch.
"Cade!" Maya called out, cleaving through one of the half-dead creatures that she'd already been facing. As the Spell announced her kill, she pivoted towards him. She sprinted, heart pounding, desperate to reach him first.
And thankfully, she did. Just in time.
Maya's gaze snapped to Cade's body, her grip tightening around the hilt of her longsword as she raised it defensively in front of her. She adopted the stance that Cade had drilled into her through hours and hours of relentless training.
Maya noticed that Cade's eyes were open, but there was nothing behind them— no light, no focus; just an eerie, hollow emptiness. His body lay sprawled on the bloodstained coral, limbs twisted in an unnatural position, as if he had collapsed in an instant, the life drained from him in the blink of an eye.
But Maya knew better.
Cade wasn't dead. The bastard would never go down that easily.
No, this was something else. He was clearly in the midst of forming his second Core— whatever that process entailed. And if his first Core's creation had been anything to go by, he was likely enduring something worse than death itself.
"Hang tight, Cade..." Maya murmured, tilting her head ever so slightly over her shoulder, careful to keep the advancing Shadecoils within her line of sight. Their movements had obviously been slowed. Their hulking forms were weighed down by the relentless blizzard. They weren't as fast anymore— but they were still coming.
The other Shadecoils in the clearing thrashed about, their grotesque heads snapping in every direction, searching. They obviously couldn't see or sense Maya. After all, she had remained perfectly still from the moment she reached Cade, allowing her Innate Ability to take full effect. Now, she was nothing more than a phantom— unseen and undetectable.
She inhaled slowly, keeping her lips still as she spoke again, her voice laced with quiet urgency and sharp concern. "Hey, maniac… you still alive?"
Cade, of course, didn't respond. And she hadn't expected him to. The words had been more for herself than for him— a frail attempt to steady her nerves.
Ten more Shadecoils were prowling through the clearing. Their grotesque, eyeless heads twisted and darted around frantically. They were searching for the faintest sign of movement.
Maya knew she had to kill them. That was her test, after all. And she had to do it while ensuring not a single one got close to Cade's unmoving body.
Besides, she already knew that Cade was alive. He simply had to be. He couldn't— no, he wouldn't— die like this. Not so easily. Not so... anticlimactically.
Maya exhaled slowly, steeling herself. She shifted her gaze and took stock of the remaining creatures. Her grip tightened around the hilt of the Nightcarver, her knuckles turning white.
Just how ugly can something get?! she thought, exasperated. Well, whatever... Come on, then.Let me show you why you never mess with us Otherwalkers...
And with that thought— she moved.
Exhaling sharply, Maya charged at the remaining creatures, the blizzard of her Winter raging as the battle resumed.
***
Maya's blade cleaved through the first of the snarling monstrosities, which had already been injured. Black ichor sprayed across the fluttering cloak of her frost-bitten armor.
The blizzard swirling around her intensified. The winds whipped her ashen hair into wild strands. Her breath was ragged, but she gritted her teeth and pressed forward.
As soon as she had moved, the effect of her Innate Ability had been broken. So now, the Shadecoils could see or sense her as clearly as ever. And right now, there was no Cade to take them on in her stead.
The ugly Shadecoils were relentless. Their malformed bodies were twitching with unnatural spasms as they charged at her.
She ducked low and narrowly avoided the raking talons of a creature that lunged from her left. Pivoting sharply, she stepped closer to her attacker and drove her sword upward, splitting the abomination's torso. Her raw strength, while augmented by her blizzard, was nothing to scoff at. The creature screeched and flailed, before collapsing onto the coral-strewn floor.
The Spell's voice spoke, hatred bubbling beneath every word:
[You have slain an Awakened Beast, Bloodless Shadecoil.]
[... The Winter within you expands.]
The Shadecoils were obviously slower than normal Awakened Beasts should have been. Her blizzard was slowing them down. However, Maya's own arms were also trembling from the exertion. Her augmentation was the only thing keeping her on her feet.
She had never faced so many abominations head-on before. She had always carefully utilized her Innate Ability and her Aspect Ability to dispatch Nightmare Creatures. She had always worked smartly.
However, this? This was different. This was carnage, pure and simple. She didn't really enjoy it, but she felt like she understood what Cade had meant when he'd mentioned the thrill of battle. Standing here, in the middle of the bloody battlefield, she couldn't deny that it was... rather exhilarating.
Also, it wasn't like she had a choice. She had to partake in the carnage. After all, she was not fighting for food or fragments, right now. No, she was fighting to keep her companion alive.
And so, she could not stop. Not now.
There were still eight Shadecoils left.
They circled her warily now. Their eyeless faces were twitching as if they could sense her shifting presence within the storm. Maya's blizzard swirled tighter and the air thickened with the biting frost. Her breath came fast and visible, the mist mingling with the snow-laden winds.
She took a deep breath, tightening her grip on her frost-slick blade.
The first of the remaining creatures chittered, its serrated maws stretching impossibly wide. With a guttural screech, it led the charge. The others followed in a frenzied swarm.
Maya let instinct take over.
The blizzard surged at her command. Maya had always been able to control the power of her Ability. But during these past two weeks, while fusing her blizzard with Cade's Darkness, she'd always had to hold back. It took a mental toll on Cade if her blizzard turned too chaotic while mixed in with his Darkness.
However, that wasn't the case right now. She didn't need to hold back now.
Maya commanded her Aspect Ability to fully unleash itself, holding nothing back. Icy winds tore through the clearing, uncontrolled.
Ever since she'd acquired her Dormant Ability, the Promised Storm, Maya had always felt like the name was a misnomer. Her blizzard had never replicated the ferocity of a true storm.
But right now, she realized that she'd been wrong. It's just that she had never completely unleashed it. Now that she did though, she understood why it was called what it was called.
The storm howled around Maya, a feral, mindless thing of ice and wind and biting cold. Snow lashed through the air in jagged sheets, the sharp hiss of it biting into the Shadecoils' flesh and bone.
Shards of ice screamed past Maya's ears, skimming harmlessly over her own frost-coated skin. However, the abominations surrounding her were not so lucky.
She watched the previously charging abominations. Their movements slowed down to a crawl, frost coating their elongated, rubbery limbs. Maya moved like a tempest within the uncontrolled chaos. The Nightcarver flashed with desperate precision.
One of the creatures stumbled, weighed down by the relentless fury of the storm. It tried to snarl, to let out a final screech, but ice choked it off, curling around the creature's numerous maws in a deathly rime.
Maya swung the Nightcarver desperately, putting all of her augmented strength into it. As the curved longsword came into contact with the creature's grotesque head, the frozen skull shattered into a hundred fragments of flesh, bone and ice. The Spell confirmed the kill in a low hiss.
Maya smiled, feeling satisfied with her kill, but she quickly remembered Cade's training: "There's someone out there who let their guard down one breath too soon, and died with a smile on their face... Don't be that person, Maya. A battle is not won until you're the last breath left on the battlefield."
She turned around quickly, but— too late!
A creature had already lunged too close— its talons raked across her armored shoulder, sending her stumbling. The Skerrian Aegis held— albeit barely.
She grunted, pain lancing through her side. She even felt a bit of blood streaming down where the creature had hit, but even the blood froze under the assault of her storm.
Maya didn't linger, though. Because the creature was slowed down considerably, it was a second too late to follow up with another attack.
She twisted sharply, narrowly avoiding a talon aimed directly at her face. Stepping in close, she drove her sword through the creature's throat. Black ichor sprayed across her gauntlet, before freezing into shards of obsidian. The creature convulsed and fell limp. The Spell announced the kill once again:
[You have slain an Awakened Beast, Bloodless Shadecoil.]
[The Winter within you expands...]
This time, she didn't let herself feel satisfaction. She remained wary. If she died here, no one would care how close she'd gotten to winning.
Another one of the Shadecoils charged straight at her. She commanded the blizzard to grow more concentrated against this one. The abomination was slowed down to a crawl.
She lunged, driving the Nightcarver through its frozen chest and shattering it into icy crystals made of skin and bone. As the Spell confirmed her kill, she counted the remaining abominations.
Six left.
The next two came at her together. Their claws sliced through the frigid, raging storm. Maya's heart pounded as she spun between them. Her blizzard wrapped around their forms. Ice crept along their limbs, slowing their movements just enough for her to strike.
Her sword flashed once, twice, severing the Shadecoils' limbs and leaving shattered remains in her wake. She put both of them down with sharp stabs to their heads.
Four left.
Her breath hitched and each gasp burned in her chest. Blood trickled from a shallow gash on her cheek, but it quickly froze, mixing with the frost clinging to her skin. Her blizzard raged, but even it felt strained now, the weight of the exhaustion creeping in.
The remaining creatures hesitated. Their twitching forms seemed to be wary of the lone girl standing amidst the frozen carnage.
"You're almost there," Maya whispered to herself, forcing her trembling legs to steady. "Just a little more..."
With a defiant cry, she surged forward, her blizzard swirling like a living shield. The creatures screeched and clawed, but their movements were sluggish against the biting cold. Maya moved with wild determination, and her blade found its mark again and again until the last of the abominations collapsed into the coral-strewn ground.
The Spell's voice echoed again, disgusted by the fact that it was speaking to her:
[You have slain an Awakened Beast, Bloodless Shadecoil.]
[... The Winter within you expands.]
As the voice of the Spell grew quite, silence fell, broken only by Maya's ragged breathing and the fury of her Ability.
She stood there for a moment, swaying slightly. The Nightcarver was covered with frozen, black ichor. The blizzard around her began to wane. The winds calmed as the last of the threat was vanquished.
Then, Maya's gaze fell on Cade, still sprawled unconscious on the ground. His face was pale. His hair had been rimed by the chaos of Maya's storm.
She stumbled towards him, dropping to one knee beside his motionless form.
"You idiot," she muttered, brushing frost-covered hair from her face and breathing deeply. "Of all the times you could've decided to take a nap..."
She sat down beside him. Her breath was coming in ragged gasps.
I... I did it, she thought, exhausted but also satisfied with the result of her struggle. I passed.
She let herself smile widely, ecstatic that her training had paid off. She got ready to dismiss the Nightcarver, slightly bitter that she hadn't gotten any Memories out of the Shadecoils. But that bitterness was nothing compared to the glee she felt at the moment.
Suddenly— a sound.
Maya's thoughts trailed off as a noise echoed from inside the cavern— a low, guttural rumble that vibrated through the very ground beneath her feet.
Her breath caught in her throat as the air grew thick with an oppressive weight. The entrance to the cavern darkened, shadows pooling as something massive stirred within.
And then, it emerged.
The monstrosity that dwelled within the cavern.
The creature was a hulking, serpentine abomination, a nightmare given form. Its massive, coiling body slithered and writhed. Each movement rippled through its thick, blood-red, armored scales. The scales themselves gleamed with a sickly, almost wet red sheen under the dim light, as if perpetually coated in blood.
Maya gulped, her throat dry, as the satisfaction she'd felt moments ago evaporated.
The abomination's head was grotesquely oversized, a monstrous fusion of serpent and predator, with a maw that gaped unnaturally wide. At the sides of the upper jaw, there were two massive dagger-like teeth— longer even than her very own Nightcarver.
The two jaws were lined with jagged, uneven teeth which jutted out at odd angles, some broken, others far too long, like the remnants of a beast that had devoured more than it was ever meant to. A forked tongue flickered between them, tasting the air, dripping with something viscous.
Its red eyes— small, sunken pits of blood— burned with a dull, predatory hunger, devoid of reason but filled with raw malice.
Along its spine, jagged, bony protrusions jutted outward like crude, uneven spines, twitching as it moved. And as it reared up, its elongated form stretched impossibly high. The air itself seemed to grow heavy with the sheer wrongness of its existence.
The creature's maw opened wide once again. From within, an otherworldly, strange and haunting resonance hummed— a vibration that rattled Maya's very bones. The sound was not just scary. No, it was disorienting, like the grinding of tectonic plates beneath the sea.
Maya tried to remain as still as she possibly could. If she did, she would soon become unnoticeable. And Cade was already unconscious. Maybe the Tyrant— or whatever this thing was— would leave them alone.
But the abomination did not.
Its bloodshot eyes scanned the scene in the clearing, the carnage that Shroudkeeper and Veil of Ashes had brought upon its minions.
Then, its head snapped towards her, its gleaming, red eyes seeming to look right through her. It wasn't staring at Maya— it obviously couldn't see her. She was unmoving, after all. No, it was looking beside her; its eyes were locked on Cade's body.
Maya's heart raced, as every instinct screamed at her to run. She remembered what Cade had told her to do. She couldn't hope to take this monstrosity on. This was well beyond her current capabilities.
But...
But what about Cade himself? He was lying unconscious beside her, utterly defenseless. The creature wasn't ignoring him, like he'd said it would.
His words thundered through her mind, "You see something other than the Shadecoils step out of that cavern, you turn around and you run away..."
Her fingers tightened around her sword hilt, as she considered running away. She stole a glance at Cade's unconscious body.
I told you this was a bad idea, you maniac... she thought, cursing the bastard for not listening to her.
Her survival instinct warred with her resolve. Cade had specifically told her to run away if the dweller of the cavern came out.
What business did she have facing this living nightmare? And that, too, for someone she hadn't even known existed a few weeks ago?
Cade had brought this upon himself. Why should she suffer for his reckless confidence?
Wasn't it much safer for her to continue staying still? The abomination could do whatever it pleased with Cade, what did she care?
The blood-drenched serpent couldn't see her. It couldn't sense her. She was safe. As long as she didn't move, she would survive. The abomination would ignore her and go for Cade.
Hadn't that been her primary goal? Survival?
Yes, that was it. Survival. She had to survive. And she would survive.
Taking a deep breath, she tightened her grip on the hilt Nightcarver and... stepped forward to stand in front of Cade's unconscious body.
He'd specifically told her to run away.
But who the hell did he think he was, giving the Veil of Ashes orders? Sure, he was a formidable warrior but Maya was an arrogant and prideful person herself.
Run away? Hide?
No, that was simply beneath her.
"Yup... not happening," she whispered fiercely, forcing her trembling legs to keep standing.
The serpentine abomination slithered forward. Each movement sent tremors through the coral-strewn ground. The eerie hum emanating from its body intensified, making the very air vibrate.
Maya's resolve hardened.
She was outmatched— that much was painfully clear. Her blizzard wasn't at full strength— she was exhausted, after all; her sword would barely scratch the serpent's hardened hide and blood drenched scales. Her armor, already dented and worn, wouldn't withstand even a single direct blow.
But none of that mattered.
It was Cade's life that was on the line. He was her annoying friend, her companion— the first real one she'd ever had. He was her irritating master. And she'd be damned before she let him die.
If protecting him meant facing this living nightmare in a losing battle, so be it.
"Well, he did tell me that I get to choose which one of us dies first..." she muttered to herself, forcing a smile to her lips. Not that she was planning on dying anytime soon...
Steeling herself, Maya took a step forward. Frost swirled around her once more. The blizzard within her Winter roared defiantly, feeding off of her desperation.
"Come on, then," she muttered under her breath, her eyes locked on the towering serpentine abomination. "Let's see what you've got."
The abomination let out a guttural roar. The vibration of its voice shook the very coral beneath her feet.
And Maya charged.
________________________________________
Damn, I completely forgot that I was supposed to update today. Sorry about that, people!
Actually, I've got my plate full with studies, exams, and all that. I honestly fell asleep right at my desk. I just woke up, and remembered that I gotta update today. Don't mind the late upload...
Anyway, what'd you think? I felt like I've never written a fight with just Maya, so I thought I should give it a try. It'll help me expand the scope of my writing, while also fleshing out Maya's own ability and character.
Besides, I already told y'all that there would be Maya POV chapters, so you gotta accept that.
In any case, I hope you enjoyed it. If you come across a plot hole or discontinuity, do let me know— I'm not a real writer (yet), so I might make some mistakes here and there. If you think there are any inconsistencies in my writing, do point them out.
Also, check out the discord on the fanfic section of SS discord. (Uh, what exactly are you supposed to do there? Do I announce chapter updates there? Or wait for people to show up?)
Meh... anyway, until next time, people! :]